colloqium48 - Lisa Fornhammar

This lecture presents findings from an article-based doctoral dissertation that explores the transformative potential of transdisciplinary and transprofessional collaboration in contemporary vocal music and higher music education. It responds to a persistent challenge in the field: the dominance of narrow specialization, siloed expertise, and individualised master–apprentice pedagogies, which often fail to prepare singers for the collaborative, interdisciplinary, and rapidly changing realities of professional life.

As professional singers today are increasingly required to be adaptable, collaborative, and professionally versatile, the study argues for an expanded understanding of professionalism—one that values shared knowledge production, democratic collaboration, and practitioner expertise alongside artistic excellence.

The research asks: How can transdisciplinary collaboration foster more sustainable forms of professionalism in contemporary vocal music and higher music education?

Methodologically, the dissertation adopts a hyper-transdisciplinary practitioner research approach, conceptualised as a holistic bricolage. Three interconnected studies combine meso-historical analysis, clinical voice science, and duoethnography within a practice-based cooperative inquiry. The concepts of beginner’s mind and third space function as key epistemological and pedagogical frameworks, enabling dialogic, exploratory, and boundary-crossing forms of learning and knowledge production.

The findings are presented across three peer-reviewed articles. The first demonstrates, through a meso-history of Western opera practices, that current models of specialization in higher music education are historically contingent rather than inevitable. The second offers empirical, science-informed insights into extended vocal techniques, supporting safer and more sustainable vocal practices. The third draws on duoethnographic pedagogical reflection to show how collaborative learning in third spaces between music professionals fosters innovation, mutual understanding, and resilient professional identities.

Overall, the dissertation advocates a collaborative turn in professional music education. It positions transdisciplinary professionalism as a key strategy for developing sustainable, adaptive, and future-oriented artistic practices—where innovation and creativity emerge through both mental and physical spaces of collaboration.

Lisa Fornhammar ist eine vielseitige Sopranistin, Pädagogin und Forscherin, bekannt für ihr breites künstlerisches Spektrum und ihre innovative Lehrtätigkeit. Ausgebildet in Stockholm und am Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, interpretiert sie Repertoire von der Barockmusik bis zur zeitgenössischen Musik. Sie ist europaweit tätig, engagiert sich besonders für Neue Musik und hat zahlreiche Werke uraufgeführt. Sie unterrichtet Kammermusik und das Wahlfach “Transdisziplinarität in der neue Musik” an der Universität Mozarteum Salzburg sowie Gesang als zentrales künstlerisches Fach im Rahmen von der internationale Master für neue Musik, gibt internationale Meisterkurse und forscht zu experimentellen Vokaltechniken und innovativer Pädagogik. Von 2023–25 war sie Gastprofessorin an der Hochschule für Musik Dresden. Im April 2025 wurde sie zur Prorektorin für Forschung und Internationales ernannt.